A work day on the refuge wasn't planned. We'd hoped to not start until Monday. We had arranged to see Paula at the breeding facility this morning, but it was unclear whether is was just a visit to plan the next week.
After a stop at the Gadsen Coffee Company to pick up a gift latte for Paula, we made our way to the quail breeding facility way out in the back country outside of Arivaca. We caught upon all the changes to the breeding and release program and the improvements in facilities for the birds.
We stayed and helped out with the bird's daily care.
It was great to see Paula again and to see the new setup for the captive breeding quail. Before, the birds were kept in brooder cages which were originally designed only to hold chicks, but now Paula had built pens where they had lots of room to move around and had netting roofs. We helped her put together the first of these pens when we were last here and she has been able to refine the concept and go from purchased pens designed for rabbits and chickens, to ones that are much larger, airier and better suited for the quail.
It also helped that many of the birds have been transferred to the outdoor flight pens near the refuge headquarters and that a large part of the breeding program has been moved to a private organization under contract. This means that Paula has to maintain fewer birds in the breeding facility. But it is also a bit more day-to-day work with the large pens.
The pens are set on the floor, which is covered in a thick layer of wood shavings. Each pen has several feeding stations and a self filling water bowl as well as several cardboard box houses for the quail to hide in and jump on top of. Each the feeding stations has to be removed, checked, cleaned and filled each day and the water stations also have to removed washed and refilled each day. With at least two dozen pens, this is quite a bit of work. The pens, themselves, have to be periodically cleaned along with the floors and the shavings replaced and the houses replaced as well.
The old brooders just had long feeding troughs along the outside and water delivered by tubes to little valves that the birds pecked on to get water. While they were easier to service, they were not as good for the birds.
On top of all of this, Paula has to check all the birds to make sure they are healthy and do the planning for each year's breeding...and breeding season is about to start. She has to decide which birds to pair up based on their genetics (not all the birds are bred) and put them in their own breeding pens, which have also been upgraded since we were here last. Once they start breeding and the hens start laying she has to remove the eggs and put them in incubators.
Once they hatch, and there will be several hundred, they get transferred to the brooding pens and as they grow, transferred to the large floor pens. Meanwhile, many of last years chicks will get moved out to the outdoor flight pens and some may eventually be released.
Paula had an assistant for the last year on a one year term contract, but she decided to take another position when the term ended, so our help has come at a good time, but is unfortunately for only a short time. We will be doing the daily general care tasks of cleaning and refilling the food and water stations. We started doing that today and with Ellen doing the water and I doing the feeders, it took from about 8am to 1pm to complete. We were pretty beat by the time we got back to the main part of the refuge which is about 25 miles from the breeding facility.
We will be taking tomorrow off as we need to make a food run into Tucson. By the time we arrived, our cupboards and refrigerator were nearly bare.
At least the weather has been a bit cooler here, only mid-80s today, with a forecast of high 40s overnight...no air conditioner needed!
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